Bruce Jenner's Transition Story Makes 'Keeping Up With The Kardashians' Worth It

Steph Fairyington reflects on the impact of of Jenner's story to the trans community and, more personally, her own life.

Last night, in a moving (and path-paving) interview with 20/20's Diane Sawyer, Bruce Jenner, the Kardashian clan's patriarch, revealed what several media outlets have been speculating since early last year: He's transitioning and will soon be living exclusively as the female he's known he was since age eight. "For all intents and purposes," he told Sawyer, "I am a woman."

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"My whole life," he said, "has been preparing for this moment."

The 1976 decathlon gold medalist who forged a lucrative career as a motivational speaker in the '80s before becoming the muted father figure on E!'s hit reality series, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, confessed to sneaking into his sister's closet to try on one of her dresses as a kid. "I put a scarf over my short hair" he recalled, and walked around outside. "I didn't know why I was doing it," he said, noting that there were no trans cultural guideposts at the time to help him understand the discontinuity he felt between his body and gender, "It just made me feel good."

While he was able to channel his inner turmoil and self-discomfort into a spectacular athletic career—and distract himself with three marriages and ten children over the years—his gender demanded self expression, even if only in the privacy of his own home, but with a family as big as his, the house was rarely entirely empty. He told Sawyer about two incidents during which Kim Kardashian, his stepdaughter, and Kendall, his daughter with ex-wife, Kris, caught him in women's clothes.

"Kim walked out, jumped in the car went for a drive," and didn't bring it up again until reports of his transition hit the presses years later. Kendall discovered his secret via digital footage: She thought her younger sister Kylie was stealing her clothes so she put her computer on security mode and it captured her dad's every move as soon as he walked in to check out his outfit in their full-length mirror.

Toward the end of the interview, there was a sweet exchange between Jenner and Sawyer. He invited her into his closet to show her the elegantly sexy black dress he'd later wear at their off-camera one-on-one dinner together. His eyes sparkled as he shared it with her.

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These sartorial moments and memories, along with a few other things, struck me when watching the special. First, I should say that I think it's invaluably important that Jenner brought his story to the national stage—his sacrifice for the greater good of the trans community cannot be underestimated. But since it wasn't addressed in ABC's two hour program, I think it's worth remembering that there is not only one way to be trans. There are several degrees and varying formulations of tranness, some of which don't call for sex confirmation surgery or even hormone therapy. Some like to stay in an ambiguous limbo between sexes.

This point, which is relevant as a reminder that there isn't one blueprint for trans actualization, leads me to an odd self-discovery recently. While I've always identified as lesbian, I've had the recent realization that my gender doesn't sync up with my body as squarely as I've tried to think. As someone who regularly watches Female to Male video diaries to marvel at the muscle-building power of testosterone shots with the unfulfilled hope of gaining as much mass sans shots, and as someone who has never looked at a female body for workout inspiration but rather pulls up Brad Pitt or a young Marlon Brando in a Google image search for motivation, I'm not entirely sure that I don't straddle some unmarked line between standard fair dyke and quasi transman. There is so much overlap, which is why I felt so acutely Jenner's painful, awkward, and exhilarating memories of secretly trying on women's garb.

His anecdotes remind me how vital clothing is to self-understanding and expression. What to wear is not a trivial or small decision—every day it's an active creative form of self assertion. I think it's a significant part of gender presentation that bears contemplation and elaboration. As a fledgling dyke growing up in the '80s, my gender didn't at all align with my mother's feminine preferences for my wardrobe. She'd often confine me to dresses, which was so out of whack with my self conception, I'd weep in protest, while coveting (and sometimes stealing) my brother's clothes. It was agonizing. It was cruel. She didn't know any better, and perhaps now she will.

Whether or not you consider the Kardashian tribe to be vapid, perhaps symptomatic of cultural decline as some highbrows contend, their entire (superficial) enterprise may have been worth it for what Jenner called this "one real, true story."

"Jenner's transition as such a public icon is a cultural milestone," transman Shannon Minter, who heads the legal division of the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, CA, tells ELLE.com. "Jenner's story has the potential to greatly increase public understanding and support."

Trans rights activist and director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, Mara Keisling agreed: "Stories like Jenner's help change the narrative about who transgender people are. Millions of Americans now have a bridge to understanding the truth behind the struggles of being transgender in 2015 America."

Perhaps the most eloquent words and sentiments came from multi-hypenate "genius" Kanye West when he explained why his wife Kim must offer Jenner her full support and love. According to Jenner, Kanye told Kim: "Look, I can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am. I can have the most beautiful little daughter in the world, and I have that. But I'm nothing if I can't be me. If I can't be true to myself, they don't mean anything.'"

Kim took those words to heart and in turn offered Jenner her first bit of woman-to-woman advice: "Girl, you gotta rock it, baby!"

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